The firing of a lieutenant with the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office in Texas has been upheld after that now ex-lieutenant, Roxanne Mathai, joined the crowds of Trump supporters descending on the Capitol building during the violence there in January. As reported by an ABC affiliate in Texas known as KSAT, “Mathai appealed [Sheriff Javier] Salazar’s decision [to fire her], then later argued before an arbitrator that she was simply present for a historic event” — but that arbitrator has now taken the side of the sheriff. Mathai posted photos on social media showing her in the D.C. crowds that threatened democracy on that fateful January day, and she described what went down as among the “best day[s] of my life.”
New: Trump’s loss-making Scottish golf resorts claimed in excess of £3.3m in emergency handouts from the UK government to help furlough staff during the Covid pandemic lockdowns, the Guardian reports.
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) December 27, 2021
Salazar commented as follows to KSAT, referring to Mathai’s dubious defense:
‘I just thought it was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. It’s not like you’re standing there for the signing of the Declaration of Independence. That’s a historic event. You’re there when fellow Americans lost their lives. That’s nothing to be proud of… When that information first came to me I was infuriated. I was embarrassed that here we are seeing just a treasonous act on our country, and one that people lost their lives during the foolishness that went on during January 6th. And then to find out that not only did I have a deputy there partaking in it, it was a high-ranking deputy. That was just something that I couldn’t believe from the onset.’
Trial date set for April 4, 2022 in high-level US Capitol riot case against former NY police officer Thomas Webster, who's accused of assault against police on Jan. 6 at Capitol pic.twitter.com/Emz5PieLZf
— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) December 28, 2021
Mathai has not been criminally charged for her participation in the events of January 6. Federal prosecutors have been working their way through the ranks of those who were there that day, seemingly focusing on those who were found to have committed offenses like assaulting police officers and actually entering the Capitol building. Mathai’s legal team has previously indicated an intention to file a lawsuit alleging that she was wrongfully fired, but such a case had not emerged as of early this Tuesday. In comments posted to social media, Mathai indicated what may have been an awareness of the criminal nature of what was unfolding around her in January. She wrote, “And we are going in……in the crowd at the stairs…not inside the capitol like the others. Not catching a case lol” — with that last remark presumably referring specifically to a criminal case.
Reported in an exclusive for @GuardianUS that Trump called Willard lawyers and told them to stop Biden’s certification from taking place just hours before the Capitol attack https://t.co/0tsVikPHjt https://t.co/4L1R34LiWe
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) December 27, 2021
Mathai is not the only individual to have been affiliated with law enforcement and present in the crowds during the January riot. Just recently, federal Judge Emmet Sullivan handed down an order for the continued pre-trial detention of Tennessee resident Ronald McAbee, who was a police officer at the time that he participated in the violence. In one example of what McAbee did while at the Capitol, he can be seen on video “punching and grabbing at D.C. Police officers while wearing his sheriff’s department tactical gear” while “[another] D.C. Police officer is seen lying motionless at his feet,” a D.C.-area CBS affiliate has explained.
Missed this last week: Judge Emmet Sullivan has issued his long-awaited written opinion on the pre-trial detention of Ronald Colton McAbee, aka #ThreePercentSheriff
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) December 27, 2021
